And I Don't Know What I'm Doing
by delga
Summary: But Zoe wasn’t like that. Zoe loved her job. Zoe needed her job." Zoe-centred; spoilers for 3x05.


**And I don't know what I'm doing**

Fandom: Spooks

Spoilers: 3x05

Category: Angst

Summary: _But Zoe wasn't like that. Zoe loved her job. Zoe needed her job._ Zoe-centred; was written prior to 3x05.

* * *

For the first three nights, she cries herself to sleep. 

It was supposed to be so simple. It was supposed to be so perfect in its ingenuity. But like all things that were 'supposed' to be, it didn't turn out that way at all.

--

She gets off the bus. She's been riding around England in taxis and trains, buses and coaches. She's been travelling for eight days, up and down the country and she's still tense, still unbearably tight around the muscles. Her shoulders aches with the effort of being hyper-alert, hyper-aware, sensitive to every detail—

whyishelookingatmewho'stheguyonthecornerstopstaringstopstaringstop

—and she knows that they know, that every single observer knows and she's bathed in the sins of what came before.

--

She wonders, at night (when she can't sleep, when she can't move and she can't cry anymore), where Tom is. It was so much easier for him, she thinks. He was just let go. His conscience too heavy, his mind too warped by everything that he'd seen and done and they let him out the door with a smile and a friendly pat on the back; _you'll be alright, you'll see, this is for the best, you chose this_. And Tessa. She'd been broken by the burden of it all. Broken and bitter and as sharp as she was sour. She was acerbic and dangerous _and you loved her for it, even at the end_.

But Zoe wasn't like that. Zoe loved her job. Zoe needed her job.

Zoe had been thrown away like something dirty and unwanted.

--

She wonders, at night (when she's cold and she's alone and she's oh so sad with mourning), what Tom did when he ran. She remembers that she was confused, remembers that she was burnt by the sting of betrayal (_betrayal? That's not betrayal, this is betrayal_), remembers that she wanted to scream with the injustice of it all. She could feel the anxiety pouring out of her skin like and ocean that cradled her. She remembers wanting him to come back, wanting him, so desperately, not to become what he himself hated. And she remembers his return, remembers Harry's hatred – _remembers Adam Carter circling the man like a lion_ – and she cries.

Tom didn't come back.

Yes, _yes_, he was back in the flesh but Tom (the _real _Tom, the fighter: the winner) never came back. That Tom was lost at sea when he plunged into the cold, icy water and swam away from them, never to return.

--

It's raining.

She waits at the bus stop, another in the line of so many gone and so many still to come. She can't stop moving, can't stop running and she thinks to herself that she should probably think about leaving the country too. She could be a renegade, she could find some other way of doing what she does best.

The dark, heavy, overcast skies have plagued her from one village to the next, one destination to the next in a never-ending pursuit that makes her feel that even the weather abhors her, spites her, spits at her in disgust. _I didn't do it – this isn't my fault!_

A mother and her son sit down next to her, seeking shelter from the rain. The woman plays with the child, laughing as he tries to escape from her grip. The mother turns to her, smiles. Zoe watches, the boy slips out into the weather.

"_Danny! Get back here!"_

The woman retrieves the child and turns back to look at Zoe, maybe to ask her the time—

But she's gone, running down the street, running and running and never ever looking back.

--

She wonders, sometimes (only sometimes, never always, never frequently, never every-second-of-every-waking-moment), what Danny is doing and what he's thinking.

And then she doesn't bother.

He kicked her out too.

--

Sometimes she sees a couple – maybe on the train, or in a café where she stops for breakfast – and she thinks of Will.

Sometimes she thinks of nothing at all.

--

She comes to a B&B and she takes a key from the weary landlady. She ignores the woman as she traipses up the stairs to the room – _no. 4_ – and she sits on the bed. It's been four weeks now and she's never been more strung out, never been more infuriated, frustrated. She's sick of the sight of small dank rooms with no running water. She's sick of the same clothes she's been wearing – a few t-shirts, a pair of jeans, a few pairs of underwear – and mostly she's sick of herself.

But she's there. She's done it. She's been out of contact, on the move for 28 days.

Now she waits.

She sits on the bed and stares at the wallpaper, yellowing and peeling slowly from the walls. The air is humid and ripe with the smell of burnt ash, as though the room is on fire. She lies back onto the stiff mattress and stares at the ceiling, stares hard at the long cracks in the plaster, the damp patches.

_It was supposed to be so simple_.

She reaches beneath the bed and pulls out a black shoebox, exactly where it was supposed to be. _At least some things work out_. She opens it up, pulls up the false bottom and swallows – hard.

There's a red passport - her picture secured neatly inside the ink box - new credit cards, a calendar, a manila envelope (ohgodanenvelopesoclichédsoobvious) and keys: to a new house, a new car, a new job (_a new her_).

And inside, right at the bottom, a sheet of white paper with black typed lines.

_Zoe,_

_So here we are. This is life. Tom_

She cries herself to sleep.

**FIN**


End file.
